Taught By

Diana E.E. Kleiner

Dunham Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University

Transcript

I'm going to, I'm going to skip a couple of centuries and take us from the 8th century B.C. to the 6th century B.C. and talk about what was the greatest architectural project in the 6th century B.C. Just a few words about what was going on in the 6th century B.C. those who are ascendant in the 6th century B.C. were essentially the Etruscans. The Etruscans lived in what is known as Etruria, they were quite advanced civilization prior to the Roman period, lived in Etruria which is which is essentially Tuscany today. Etruscan. Tuscany. Tuscany today. So, the area around Florence and so on and so forth is where many of these individuals lived. They became a quite powerful civilization and they were able to use that power to gain ascendancy also in Rome itself. And there's a period in which there was a succession of Etruscan kings who were who were leading Rome and these Etruscan kings you know eventually kicked out by the Roman's. But at this time in the 6th century they were extremely important and it was under Etruscan supervision and patronage that a big, a major temple began to be put up in Rome in the 6th century BC, precisely in 509. It was dedicated in the year 509 BC, as you can see from the monument list. The temple in question was the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus Capitolinus. Now, that is a mouthful and I don't want you to have to necessarily remember all of that. Jupiter Optimus Maximus Capitolinus. So we will call him, we will call this temple for all intents and purposes, the temple of Jupiter OMC, Jupiter OMC, Optimus Maximus Capitolinus. The top, the top of the temple of Jupiter OMC was dedicated again in the year 509 B.C. and it was dedicated to Jupiter but also to his female companions, Juno and Minerva. And when we think of those three, when those three are joined together, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, they are known as the Capitoline Triad. Because their main temple was on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and we will see the Capitoline Triad not only honored in this temple, but in other temples. I showed you one on Tuesday in Pompeii, for example, the so-called Capitolium in Pompeii. That honored Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, you'll see that when a temple honors the three of them it has implications for the architecture of that building, for the design of that building, we'll talk about that right now and in a few minutes but I want you to be aware of what the Capitoline Triad is, so it's all three of them honored together although Jupiter is always considered supreme when, when ever those three get together. So we have a temple here that we have to think of in large part as an Etruscan Temple put up during the time of the Etruscan Kings dedicated in 509, but one that is beginning to have the impact of Rome and will itself have a very strong impact on Roman temple architecture. We're going to focus quite heavily today on Roman temple architecture and then of course return to it sporadically in the course of this semester as we moved through and looked at other temples like the Pantheon and like others that were put up in the Roman proviences. The temple of Jupiter OMC was built on the Capitoline hill in Rome, so one of the other major seven hills. So while the hill of the Palatine was basically the residential section of Rome at this juncture, the Capitoline hill became its religious center, where its main temple was placed. The temple of Jupiter was located on the hill, was located on the hill at about the position of one of the palaces that's there now. We mentioned last time, and any of you who've been to Rome know this well, that the Capitoline Hill was redesigned in the Renaissance by none other than Michelangelo himself. It was Michelangelo who was responsible for creating the oval piazza that is at the center of the Cap-, Cap-, Capitoline Hill, which was then recall-, renamed the Campidoglio of Rome, and they're these three palaces, designed also by Michelangelo. The Capitoline, the conservatory, and the senatorial palaces, that serve today as two museums, or a joined museum, one on either side, and a governmental building in the back. And you can see that very well here. So this is the Capitoline Hill as it looks today, as redesigned by Michelangelo, but in Roman times, it was the location, or from the 6th Century BC on, it was the location of the temple of Jupiter OMC, the chief temple of ancient Rome, the most important temple of ancient Rome. What did that temple look like? And again, it, this is extremely important, not only for it but for the rest of Roman temple architecture over time. We have, believe it or not, we have quite a bit of evidence. It's complicated by the fact that this temple burned downed quite a number of times throughout its history. We know it was still standing by the way in the 4th century AD, when it was described by a very famous writer, but, so it had a very long history, but it burned down several times. And it was rebuilt several times. And each time it was rebuilt, it obviously was rebuilt in a new style. You know, whatever was au courant. At that time, so it changed considerably. And, nonetheless, we do have quite a bit of information about it. As far as we can tell, when it was put up in 509 B.C., it looked something like this. What you're seeing here is a restored view and a plan of the temple in 509 B.C. and, it's never too soon in a course on architecture to learn how to read a plan, and how to read a restored view or a so-called axonometric view. And I have put on, you probably haven't had a chance to look yet but I've put up on the website for this course, both under announcements and also in the online forum section, a couple of sheets. That you will be, I think will be very helpful to you, that have terms and concepts, you know, it has different kinds of you know, it has different kinds of vaulting, and different kinds of masonry, and also tells you the difference between an axonometric view, and a plan and so on and so forth. I really urge you to print those out, look through them in the beginning of the semester, we do have to spend a lot of time on what things are called, but once we do that for a couple of weeks, we'll be done with it and you'll know all the basic terms and we'll be able to go on from there, but I think you'll find those handouts extremely helpful. So, as we look at what we have here, I think you can see by looking at the plan. That what we are dealing with is a rectangular structure. The rectangular structure has a deep porch and these circles are columns, so with free standing columns in that porch. It has a single staircase at the front. Having a single staircase rather than one that encircles the building gives the building a focus, there's a focus on the facade for this structure. You can also see that the back wall is plain. The back wall is plane and the cella, C, E, L, L, A A which is the central space of the inside of a temple is divided into three parts, so a tri part type cella, and why was there a tri part type cella, you know, the answer because there were three gods there was Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva the Capitoline Triad, each one had his own little cella. With Jupiter obviously in the center flanked by his two ladies one on either side. So whenever you see a building with a triple cella, you're going to know that's a that's a temple of the Capitoline Triad. We can see from the outside of the structure, the restored view. That it had a quite tall podium. The podium was in fact 13 feet tall. Pretty significant, 13 feet, foot tall. Podium right here. And here you also see again the single staircase in the front. The facade orientation, the deep porch, the free standing columns in that porch. And the triple entrance way, into the three cellas of the structure. So that's the basic plan. Let me also mention the materials for the temple of Jupiter OMC in the 6th century B.C. because technology is an import is important in any course on architecture. We know and think back to what we already know about the huts the, the building material used here was wood for the columns and the superstructure, just as we saw in the Palatine huts. Wood for the columns and the superstructure. Mud brick, not wattle and daub, but mud brick for the podium and for the walls. And then the structure had quite a bit of decoration. You don't see it here, but quite a bit of decoration, sculptural decoration in ancient times. And this was made out of terracotta. So wood, mud brick and terracotta were the materials used for this particular building. Oh I meant to show you, sorry, let me just go back for a second. The only reason that the the other plan is on the screen, the one at the left this is a plan of an Etruscan tomb, the tomb of the shields and seats from Travettori, second half of the 6th century BC, which is on your monument list. I only bring it to your attention because it's interesting that the Etruscans also divided the main space of that tomb into three spaces. three, separate spaces up at the top, tripartite and also gave it a, a, a single staircase, which gave it a, a facade orientation. I just mention that because we'll see that those partic, that those that especially that focus on the facade is an Etruscan element that is picked up by the Romans. Roman architecture is very much an architecture of facades, of the front of buildings, with the focus on the front of buildings. And I wanted to make sure that you knew that not only in temple architecture but also in tomb architecture under the Etruscans that was a an approach that they already took and that was adopted from them by the Romans. Another view also of the plan just so you can see it again straight up. With the focus on the facade, the single staircase, the deep porch, the free standing columns in that porch, and then the tri part tide division and the flat back wall. I think it's important that this juncture to make a distinction between the most important Etruscan temple, namely the che-, Temple of Jupiter OMC, and you see a model of that here. And the most important, Greek, ancient Greek temple. The Parthenon in Athens. The Parthenon in Athens dates, as you probably know, to the fifth century B.C., this to the sixth century B.C., so they are not exactly contemporary, but roughly in contemporary to one another. And as you look at this, I think you can see for yourselves although I will point, point out the major distinctions between the two. And this is going to be very, very important for today. For today's lecture, but also in the future. Because what we're going to see is that the Romans. When the Romans began to build their own religious architecture, they looked back to what had been done by the Greeks and what had been done by the Etruscans. They picked and chose what they liked in each and they brought that together in an entirely new creation. They mixed it up with their own culture, their own religion, brought it together an entirely new creation and created something distinctive that we know of as the Roman temple. So what are the, what are the differences between the two? We've already talked about the main main features of the Etruscan temple, but, with what, what are, what are, what, what are the main features of the Greek temple, the Parthenon? I think you can see that while superficially, they look alike, they have columns that support a triangular pediment and so on and so forth. The major differences are, and you can't see all of those here, but the major differences are that instead of standing, sitting on a high podium, Greek temples sit on a much lower podium. They have a staircase that encircles the entire building. No facade orientation there. No single staircase on the front. The stairs encircle the entire building as you can kind of see here. And there is a single cella, they never used the triple cella as we see in the Capitoline temple. And and the major difference between the two perhaps is the fact, that this building is built out of stone, out of marble. The Greek building is built out of marble. The Greeks using marble magnificently. In the 5th and even 5th century B.C. and even before that. So, no, no, no ordinary old wood columns and mud brick for them. They were using marble. So when we begin to see the Romans, and we'll see that today, using stone for their temple architecture. They are doing that under the very strong influence of Greece. And that's extremely important in any assessment of early Roman religious architecture. Another view, and it’s the one that you have also one on your monument list, showing the Capitoline Hill in Roman times showing you the situation of the temple of Jupiter OMC in relationship to the other buildings. They were up on top of the capitol line hill. Mostly religious structures, but I just wanted you to see that it did not stand alone. Not all of these were built in the 6th century B.C. already. But over time an accretion of other buildings. Here, you actually see the temple in a somewhat later version, because as I mentioned, it burned down and it was rebuilt, many, many times but you also can see here, this is just useful in terms of Roman religious practice The altar is located not inside the temple, but outside. The religious service actually took place outside. The priest would officiate outside the temple, and in fact, very few were allowed to go inside to see the sacred cult statues. That was pretty much left for the priest and the priesthood. Just again, to underscore the importance of Google Earth for anyone who was not here on Tuesday. I mentioned at that time that you can not only go and fly over Rome as it looks today, via Google Earth, but they have just recently in the last few months, introduced an ancient Rome version. So you can go and but you click the right button you ca-, it click your mouse in such a way, you can find that you that the whole city will be a completely recreated into the ancient city. And I just wanted you, it's much more abstract. But nonetheless, it gives you a sense of what many of these buildings look like in ancient Roman times. And this is a screen shot of the Capitoline Hill as it appears in the Google Ancient Rome version of of Rome. You can't do this for the other cities at this juncture, just for the city of Rome. But it's great fun to do. And also very informative. Now what is actually left of the Temple? Of we know, we've looked at the Campidoglio, we see Michelangelo's buildings are up there now. What is actually left of the Temple of Jupiter OMC? Well, you're looking at it right here. It's the podium of the Temple still survives, that 13 foot tall podium of the Temple of Jupiter. We think this is a quite early podium, maybe not as early as the 6th century BC. But a very early podium from the temple upon which the structure was built. You can get a sense of the height of these things. And again, a characteristic of Etruscan temple architecture, and, as we shall see, of most Roman temple architecture is to have a very high podium. We can see that podium here. And we can see what, how it is made, technically. You can see, it is made up of a series of rectangular blocks that are placed one, next to one another, and on top of one another. This is technically called ashlar masonry. Ashlar masonry, to build a to build a wall, with this, these kinds of rectangular blocks. pile, piled one on top of another. It's Tufa stone in this particular case, once again, which was natural. A Tufa stone natural to Rome. T - U - F - A. and, this, this, Ashlar masonry, again, a building technique that was particularly popular in the fifth and fourth and third centuries B.C. in Rome.

Explore our Catalog

Join for free and get personalized recommendations, updates and offers.